Munchausen
Syndrome by Proxy (MSBP) is the psychiatric diagnosis by which
a parent -- almost always a mother -- is believed to intentionally
harm or kill a child in order to garner attention.

Diagnosing a mother as having MSBP is a tool often
used by the state to remove children from the care of the parent, terminate
parental rights or in the case of a child's death, charge the parent with
murder. Now, due to a raging scandal in Britain, that diagnosis is being
discredited.

According to British newspapers, over the last decade,
thousands of British women who sought medical treatment for their children
were in fact risking being diagnosed with MSBP -- a diagnosis that could
lead to the termination of parental rights but also to imprisonment. Perhaps
as many as tens of thousands of children have been taken by the state
from their parents on the basis of "expert" testimony that the
parent had MSBP.

But with MSBP’s originator -- pediatrician Sir
Roy Meadow -- under government investigation, British authorities are being
forced to re-examine cases dating back to 1996. The
Guardian comments: "[T]he fallout from the Meadow affair
is set to go global. Thousands of families around the world who have had
their children taken into care are to demand their cases be re-examined."

In recent years, a slew
of articles on MSBP have appeared in American medical journals.
An August, 2003, FBI
Law Enforcement Bulletin included an article entitled "Munchausen Syndrome
by Proxy: the importance of behavioral artifacts." Some American doctors,
such as Dr.
Marc Feldman, advertise online their availability to testify as expert
witnesses in MSBP trials.

According to the Chicago
Sun-Times, Feldman estimates there are more than 1,200 new cases of
Munchausen's by Proxy annually in the United States. Organizations like Mothers
Against MSBP Accusations (MAMA) have sprung up in "response to
the fast growing number of false allegations" of MSBP. MAMA claims "families
across America, Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand are being destroyed
by doctors and other professionals who make false and even malicious allegations
against desperate mothers of chronically/critically ill children."

The London
Times points out that, this week, "the first anti-Munchausen’s
conference will take place in Australia."

How will the
furor impact North America? The best indication may be the unfolding
events across the Atlantic.

The scandal in Britain was sparked by a High Court review
that revealed three mothers had been wrongly accused based on his testimony.
In one case, where a family had lost two children to unexplained
infant deaths, Meadow assessed
the odds of this happening at one-in-73 million; that figure sent the
mother to jail. In that case, Meadow’s math was
rejected by the Royal Statistical Society, which issued a press
release advising the government of a misconduct of justice.

The three cases are not isolated. Attorney General Lord
Goldsmith has announced an investigation into 258 other verdicts. With the
High Court’s reversal of "Meadow’s cases," the news magazine
The Economist aptly stated in its Jan. 24 issue, "an entire medical
and legal edifice collapsed." It is not merely Meadow’s credibility
but also the research upon
which MSBP rests -- research inexplicably shredded by Meadow -- which is
under attack.

The anxiety of anti-MSBP
campaigners, who have been vocal since 1996, now revolves around one
question: what happens next?

Parents cry out "return our children!" But Margaret Hodge,
the British minister for children, says it may be wrong to do so. Admitting
that tens of thousands of children could be involved, Hodge maintains: "If
an adoption order was made … 10 years ago, what is in the real interest
of the child? … [I]f the child was adopted at birth the sensible
thing to do is to let it stay."

At least three factors strongly contributed to this sustained
debacle in Britain.

First, medical advances and educational campaigns have
caused a marked decrease in "cot deaths" that is, unexplained deaths of
babies in Britain. Over the last decade, The Economist explained that the
number of such deaths "halved … and has since fallen to around 300." But
the fact that fewer babies die mysteriously casts greater suspicion upon
those who do. Someone must be to blame.

Second, in both Britain and North America, there has
been a great willingness some would say a great eagerness to place legal
blame upon parents for any problem concerning children. Every bruise seems
to raise the specter of child abuse. The Economist reports, "As early as
1995, the Canadian government was encouraging investigators in cot death
cases to ‘think dirty’ a slogan later picked up in other countries
where infant deaths had fallen." Parents were considered guilty until proven
innocent.

As one
web site claims, "It's been estimated that as many as one in five cot
deaths is really … Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy." (The "murdering" mother
is said to bask in widespread sympathy even as she poses a threat to her
other children.)

Third, there has been a lack of accountability.

The
Guardian pointed to high-level negligence: Prime Minister Tony
Blair and key officials ignored warnings from "a leading child psychologist
and former government adviser" regarding several cases in which parents
had been wrongly separated from children because of MSBP accusations. The
British child welfare system seems to be systemically flawed.

The parallels between Britain and North America are too
strong for the scandal not to ripple over. Soon, courts over here may be
reversing verdicts; officials may be weighing whether to return children
to parents who are strangers. The facts of MSBP -- is it a valid psychiatric
condition and, if so, what is the prevalence? -- may be lost in the emotional
explosion.

Wendy
McElroy is the editor of ifeminists.com and
a research fellow for The Independent Institute in Oakland, Calif. She
is the author and editor of many books and articles, including the new
book, "Liberty for Women: Freedom and Feminism in the 21st Century" (Ivan
R. Dee/Independent Institute, 2002). She lives with her husband in Canada.